


Learning to Move

by ThisIsLightful



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, domestic abuse, mentions of abuse, takes place in a courtroom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 03:56:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11283267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisIsLightful/pseuds/ThisIsLightful
Summary: The world is full of animals; humans are just another breed.





	Learning to Move

**Author's Note:**

> This deals a bit with domestic abused, and the main character is a male being abused. I'm unsure if I'm going to leave it at one chapter or continue on with it.  
> I don't really know how the court process works, as my experience is mostly secondhand.  
> This was made because a lot of male abuse victims aren't seen as actual victims. It was also made at a highly experimental time in my writing.

He wove his web of deceit like a spider wrapping the prey it caught in its deadly thread, continuing unnoticed. He prowled around the room, long legs stretching out before black clad feet clapped onto the ground, silently; almost as though the floor beneath his shoes were delicate string. He gesticulated wildly as he spoke, the words quiet but powerful. He’d build up to the climax in a winding crescendo- too complicated to follow- before revealing a twist; an unexpected turn of events that played someone horrible as the victim, even though they were truly the predator.

He spun on his heel, adding to his ongoing tale of hurt. In lieu of lies he told instead half-truths, in place of a cure he gave instead his venom. Yet, he insistently pursued his story, his story in which I was on the opposite side of. He was the lethal spider, and I but a fly caught in his web; doomed to die, doomed to failure.  

After his moving story, I was called to the stand. He flashed me the same rapacious smile he had when trying to convince me to settle, to not bring this into public view; now, now that I was stuck in his machinations, I was to be utterly destroyed. Still, I persisted, and he did not like that. Not a single bit.

On stand I spoke the truth, under oath I did not utter a single lie. I swore to expound on the story that was only half-told, and I vowed that I would tear down every good thing this spider told about the demon that lurked behind stretched smiles and locked doors- the one I had been locked in with. To my despair, that never happened. I was cut off, forced to give only “yes” or “no” answers, words silenced before they were even halfway out of my  mouth. I sobbed as I spoke, and I was given only dirty looks from the jury- from the wolves in sheep guise. They did not believe me. They thought the words I spoke where borne from greed and that the tears that fell were ones that lied and lusted for money and attention.

By the time my lawyer- a pathetic lamb in shades of soft, pliant blues trying desperately to appease and pander the crowd- began questioning me, the wolves had tuned out, deaf to my words. The jury had decided; I would lose, I would lose  _ everything. _

And I did.  

The demon’s deceiving form brushed passed me, a frown marring her face and navy nail polish expertly painted on. Those blue nails, they reached out, each finger slender and claw-like; the picture of perfection and the personification of duplicity. Her two-faces gazed into mine, blue slamming into hazel with a sickly-sweet smile promising  _ regret.  _

“Sweetness,” a set of puckered lips gave the aura of disappointment, but the complete and utter  _ resentment  _ that flashed in her blues gave her away. “You  _ really  _ oughtn’t a’ done tha’.” Talons dug into my shoulder, a glimmer of  _ yellow  _ blinded my vision; the yellow that looked fraudulently happy and honest when it was truly angry, betrayed and lost. “I’ll find you again, don’t you fret about tha’…” The blue claws on her fingers disappeared behind my neck, coyly toying with the golden  _ chain  _ around my it. Like manacles, like a collar. “After all, you promised to be  _ mine. _ ”

The next few events blurred together, and I was being shoved out of the courthouse and into a mob. Their desire to tear me apart, their frenzy, was contagious. The disease spread until the whole crowd was infected.

Reporters lunged at me, vultures taking the remains of what was already dead. They persistently tore at my corpse, fragile and cold, digging for the answers from my mute tongue. As my eyes looked past the flashing lights and screams, I saw the newer ones. I saw the little hummingbirds meekly trying to take the pollen from a wilted flower, hoping beyond hope that they will not crush it beneath their beating wings. Yet, even then, even then they  _ knew.  _ In order to survive in a world amongst vultures, you yourself must become one, lest you get picked off. Their faces hardened, and they echoed the tune that everyone else was screaming. Smiles that were sweet like honey souring into vulturine appearance.

“Why?” and “What” and “Aren’t you outraged at the outcome of this trial?” quickly followed by “Were you really telling the truth?” and “How does it feel to have tried and fail to desecrate a perfectly fine woman‘s reputation?”, they trailed me as I kept my head down, no hair falling into my face as I had none. I heard screeches of “Liar!” and “Rot in Hell!”. I hadn’t done a single thing besides tell the truth, which had been just as miserable as the lie. I could not go on, I could not move past this, entrapped within this waning moment; my newest horror waxes.

Like the moon above, we are all a phase, all an act- an illusion. We all are real, our existences cemented in our thoughts, but does that make the act we  _ show  _ real? If that mask you donned begins to think independently, if it is your knee-jerk reaction to slide into a face that is not your own, does that make the original the new fake- or are we merely forgetting ourselves as we become  _ lost  _ in the act?

I feel as if in this very moment, as I curl in on myself and bite at the cabby to, “Step on it.” after giving my address- that I have lost a detrimental piece to the puzzle that is me. Perhaps I dropped it and it got devoured before I noticed. As I fell into a neutral face, as my tears dried and my breathing calmed, I stopped being just me. I slipped into my mask, fell into my safety net even as it threatened to choke me. 

I stepped out of the cab, numbly taking money out of my pocket and handing it to the driver.

Basking in its presence, a moth drawn to a flame. A flame that burned so hot that it scorched and seared my skin. I stepped closer, its familiarity entrancing me: I was the moth, this house the fire that seduced me to enter, and I was just waiting to get burned.

I stepped past the threshold, green grass  _ crunching  _ beneath my black sneakers. The rapacious nature of an insatiable creature known as curiosity tugged at me, drawing me ever closer to the phantom burn the house radiated. I was buzzing with anticipation, a niggling of doubt was brought to life as I stepped closer; approaching the door, the usually friendly house seemed to loom over me. Towering, vast stretches of  _ white,  _ sterile and stripping away what is left of me with cool logic. Immaculate, everything was so clean. The faux-gold knockers seemed to goad me, seemed to coax me out into a state of comfort-  _ they are called fake just as I except!!-  _ so that, when I grasp its handle, it may latch onto me and yank me, pull me by chains both visible and otherwise. 

I knock on the door.

Tense seconds rush by, time dragging its feet to delay the inevitable.

“Oh my God! Are you okay!” A fluttering, flurry movement is all that I see before I am yanked inside. I wait to be torn into with anger, wait for the voracious nature of fury to consume my friend before tearing me asunder as well. It did not happen.

“I am not okay.” They say that admitting that there is a problem is the first step to finding a solution; I’d say that admitting that there is a problem does not mean that you can change a single thing.

 

My friend was no mere bird, but a fairy: mischievous and quick, feet moving so fast they practically flew.

I rescinded that thought nearly immediately at the look upon their face. Perhaps a  _ dragon  _ would better fit them: fiercely protective over their treasure, but a being also not bound to the same earthly shackles that I was.

“It’s okay to not be okay.” Their hand settled roughly onto my shoulder, fingers curling around me like protective armor; they tried to shield me from the world with their very body, promised me warmth when the cold burned so bad that I became numb. “It’s okay to  _ feel.  _ I’ll be here you, forever and always. What else are friends for?” They glanced over at me, frowning. “Take that suit off, you need some good times. And that? That is a Not Good time, if anything.” They began to ramble, shifting through their closet. Their dark hair bobbed with their every movement, their hands flittered about them- searching for a purpose.

“Are you okay?” It was regurgitated on auto-pilot; my friend was never this nervous, and, even in my state of shock, a niggle of concern ate at me. I could not let my friend be hurt, and my focus narrowed in; slight twinges of awareness sent shocks through me, clarity bled into emotion.

I could not breathe, the pounding of my heart voracious in the way that it tore at its prison- beating angrily against sinew. I kept my face straight, ignoring the prickling of tears that burned at my eyes- their brown color watery and blurred.

“Okay?” Their voice was dangerously low, “How could I be  _ okay _ when you’re falling apart?” They stalked towards me- flashes of memory flared painfully:  _ standing before me, grin twisted into a frown, “Okay? I am not okay! You do what-” _

“Hey! Hey! Listen, , it’s going to be okay. It all sucks right now, but I’m here for you. Viel, shush now. It’s okay. We will _make it_ okay.” Viel’s friend brought a comforting hand on their shoulder, staring at him with determination in their eyes. “After all, your name means victory, right? And I’m your friend; me, the amazing one. This _guarantees_ success.”  
And for a second, I could believe them. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let the panic melt into the inky darkness of nightmares. I am Viel, and- with my helpful friend- I can emerge victorious. Even when my nightmares mirror my day evermore. 

 

 

 

 

  


End file.
